The explosions of big Syrian arsenals in Latakia are still a mystery. However, the weapons piled up for the Syrian-Hizballah Aleppo offensive were destroyed, as well as the advanced Russian Yakhon anti-ship cruise missiles.

Egyptian soldiers Monday, July 8, shot dead 51 Muslim Brotherhood supporters, injuring 322, at a sit-in for the reinstatement of deposed President Morsi at the Republican Guards Club in Cairo. The army, which lost an officer and seven wounded soldiers, said “armed terrorists” tried to storm the compound. debkafile: Away from the limelight, the army prepares to secure the Sumed pipeline carrying Persian Gulf oil to the Mediterranean, and Suez Canal shipping, on intelligence of a Muslim Brotherhood clandestine unit conspiring with Sinai Salafists and Hamas to target them.

Army chief, Gen. Abdel Fattah El-Sisi plans two follow-up steps for last Wednesday’s military coup - at risk of Washington’s censure: The roundup of thousands of local Muslim Brotherhood operatives across the country, and a military crackdown on the Brotherhood’s center of revolt in Sinai, which is allied with al-Qaeda-linked Salafists and supplied with weapons hoarded there in advance. In seeking Israel’s consent for their Sinai operation, under their peace treaty, Egypt’s military rulers will bring their collaboration with Israel out in the open. Egypt’s Sinai pipeline to Jordan was sabotaged Sunday.

Israel’s fears are eased of a Muslim Brotherhood-ruled Egypt one day declaring war and a possible conflict over lawless Sinai. Hamas is heavily diminished, as are the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan and Syria. Qatar gambled $13 bn on Mohamed Morsi – and lost the lot.

The putsch which Wednesday, July 3, overthrew Mohamed Morsi set back the Obama administration’s sponsorship of the Muslim Brotherhood as a moderate partner for its Middle East policies. debkafile: The Egyptian military could not have managed their clockwork coup without Saudi and Dubai aid in intelligence and funding. They aimed to put a spoke in the US-sponsored Arab revolt, as well as settle long scores with Barack Obama. Morsi’s downfall has far-reaching significance for Israel, most immediately easing the security threat from the South and a disaster for Hamas.

The UN rejected President Vladimir Putin’s offer Friday, June 7 of Russian peacekeepers to replace the Austrian contingent to be withdrawn from the Golan. debkafile: Putin saw an opportunity to place Russian troops face to face with the Israeli army as a barrier against anti-Assad military intervention from Israel.

Barack Obama’s new appointees, Susan Rice, National Security adviser, and Samantha Power, ambassador to the UN, favored US intervention in Libya but not Syria. They prefer to help the president achieve his pivot to Asia, but neither al Qaeda nor Iran will give them the chance.

Assad’s al Qusayr victory Wednesday, June 6, presented the US, Israel and the Western alliance with a major strategic debacle. They paid the price of leaving the Syrian-Hizballah military machine orchestrated by Iranian officers a clear field. This machine is ready to trample Aleppo and southern Syria. Israel is next in its sights.

Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, the target of the turbulent unrest sweeping Turkey, is also President Barack Obama’s foremost ally in the Muslim world. The latest DEBKA-Weekly out last Friday examined this and other repercussions of the Turkish ferment, like the posting of Revolutionary Guards on the streets of Iran, and impact on the Syrian war. Has an outside hand been feeding the flames of domestic disaffection? And why is Israel concerned? Discovered also was a possible shifting of ground between Iran and Israel, Bashar Assad’s new bankroller, and Hizballah’s creeping takeover of Syria.

Iran has discovered the attractions of its new unmanned aerial vehicles and is using them for increasingly reckless missions over strategic Middle East sites, including US forces, oil sites, army bases and Israel.

debkafile’s exclusive sources reveal that Secretary of State John Kerry wants Israel to make strategic and national concessions for buying Palestinian consent to sit down and talk – such as a Palestinian international airport in Jericho and withdrawal from the Dead Sea’s northern coast. Mahmoud Abbas is off the hook.

A Hizballah rocket fired from Lebanese Marjayoun Monday, May 27 landed harmlessly in Israel’s northernmost town of Metula. debkafile: 48 hours after Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s war speech, his terrorist group joined Syria’s war of attrition against Israel.

Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah vowed Saturday night, May 25, to expand his movement’s military role in the Syrian civil war and muster tens of thousands of volunteers. Al Qaeda fighters were streaming into Syria, and Israel planned more attacks, he warned.

Tuesday, May 21, after an exchange of fire on the Golan, Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon said: “Last night we destroyed a Syrian army position which fired on an Israeli patrol.” Damascus earlier took responsibility for the attack and threatened to strike back for Israeli reprisals.

In its air strike on Syria on May 3, Israel fired stand-off missiles, a tactic for avoiding sending planes into Syrian airspace. This tactic, which Moscow judged to be the precursor for an attack on Iran, will be thwarted by the 200-kilometer range of the S-300 anti-air missiles in Syria.

Russia has claimed it has penetrated the US missile shield and it no longer poses a military threat to Moscow. If this is true, Israel and the Gulf emirates are exposed to Iranian ballistic missiles unless because their early warning systems are integrated in the US network.

As the Syrian army makes further gains against rebel forces, debkafile reports Hizballah and Israel appear to be in the process of relocating their lines of confrontation from Lebanon to Syria. An Israeli enclave is forming around the IDF medical facilities on the Golan, while Hizballah is taking command of three pockets.